Retail activity in Lebanon maintained its steady progress over 2014 with the number of outstanding payment cards rising by a yearly 11.4% to 2.43M. In fact, 97.3% of total cards were held by residents in 2014 compared to a 95.4% stake in 2013 mainly due to the ongoing local and regional instabilities that took their toll on non-residents’ sentiment. In terms of category, debit cards remained the most preferred amongst cardholders accounting for 50.3% of the total as they were mainly destined for salaries’ domiciliation and daily use. Credit cards came in second with a 21.4% stake, followed by prepaid (21.2%) and charge cards (7.2%).
This improvement in the cards retail market came in line with the 5.3% yearly increase in the number of ATMs that reached 1,597 by the end of December. Mount Lebanon saw the highest increase in the number of new ATMs (+8.3% y-o-y) to settle at 497 in 2014 or 31.1% of total ATMs, while Beirut remained the most concentrated with ATMs grasping 42.0% of the total.
As for Point of Sales (POS) devices, the number of contracts signed with merchants posted a 5.8% yearly uptick to 37,554 while the total number of machines (manual and electronic) barely moved from 30,946 in December 2013 to 30,975 by the end of 2014.
Total Number of Outstanding Payment Cards and Non Residents’ Share
